Table Of ContentTHE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA
Personal Religion in the Apologetic Christology of Léonce de Grandmaison
A DISSERTATION
Submitted to the Faculty of the
School of Theology and Religious Studies
Of The Catholic University of America
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree
Doctor of Sacred Theology
by
Ignazio Michael Bellafiore
Washington, D.C.
2013
Personal Religion in the Apologetic Christology of Léonce de Grandmaison
Ignazio M. Bellafiore, S.T.D.
Director: Joseph A. Komonchak, Ph.D., Director
Jesuit Père Léonce de Grandmaison (1868–1927) was a leading Catholic apologist in France
during the Modernist crisis. In 1908, the year after Pascendi Dominici Gregis was published, he became
editor of Études; in 1910, he founded Recherches de Science Religieuse. Never losing sight of his lifelong
ambition to write a work on Christ, Grandmaison treated in occasional writings the crucial issues
raised by Modernists: historical criticism of the Bible, the philosophy of religion, development of
dogma, religious psychology, and religious ethnology.
The dissertation aims to show that “personal religion” was the linchpin of Grandmaison’s
apologetic Christology. Relevant occasional works by Grandmaison are examined, particularly a
series of articles in Études (1913) entitled “La religion personnelle,” an article on Christ in the
Dictionnaire apologétique de la Foi catholique (1914), and Grandmaison’s chief work, Jésus Christ: sa
personnage, son message, ses preuves (1927).
Chapter one gives a biographical introduction and an overview of Grandmaison’s formative
influences and qualities as an apologist. Chapter two examines the challenges posed by Modernism
as Grandmaison saw them. In Grandmaison’s eyes, Modernism has rendered Christ inaccessible.
Although Modernists strove to understand anew the subjectivity of faith, their misguided
approaches and teachings attacked the foundations of Christianity. Chapter three explores how he
answered these challenges regarding Catholicism. For Grandmaison, personal religion referred to the
commerce of God and believer. Personal religion also referred to the Church that Christ founded,
the Catholic Church, which was the true religion of the Spirit. Chapter four examines
Grandmaison’s Christology vis–à–vis the notion of personal religion, which, in its fundamental
sense, is Jesus’ relationship to the Father in the Holy Spirit. Grandmaison tried to demonstrate by a
direct examination of biblical texts that Jesus was, and knew himself to be, the Son of God.
The dissertation concludes that Grandmaison’s apologetic Christology presented a
convincing answer to many issues posed by Modernism. Taking their questions seriously, he
managed to show how the traditional belief in Jesus as the Son of God could secure the subjectivity
of true religion as found in Catholicism.
This dissertation by Ignazio M. Bellafiore fulfills the dissertation requirement for the
doctoral degree in Systematic Theology approved by Joseph A. Komonchak, Ph. D., as
Director, and by John P. Galvin, Dr. Theol., and Paul G. McPartlan, S.T.L., D. Phil., as
Readers.
________________________________________
Joseph A. Komonchak, Ph. D., Director
_________________________________________
John P. Galvin, Dr. Theol., Reader
_________________________________________
Paul G. McPartlan, S.T.L., D. Phil., Reader
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DEDICATION
For the Successors of St. Peter,
especially Pope St. Pius X
and the Popes who have shepherded the Church during my lifetime
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION…………………………………………………………………………...……….iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………………………..…..iv
ACKNOLWEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………………...vii
CHAPTER
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………...1
A. Modernist Crisis 1
B. Léonce de Grandmaison, S.J. 3
C. Question 5
D. Methodology 8
I. THE MAKING AND MARKS OF AN APOLOGIST…………...………………............11
A. Childhood, 1868–1886 11
B. Jesuit Formation, Professorship in Fundamental Theology, 13
and Tertianship, 1886-1901
Intellectual and Spiritual Formation
An Apologist’s Debut and an Apologist’s Manifesto
C. Professor of Fundamental Theology, 1899–1908 37
Coursework
Confronting Modernists From Afar
The Roman Interventions of 1907
The Deposit of Faith and the Development of Doctrine
D. Editor, Formator, Scholar, and Theologian, 1908-1927 66
Director of Études and Founder of Recherches de Science Religieuse
Religious Ethnology and the Genesis of Personal Religion
Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique Article on Jesus Christ
The Struggle with the Integralists
From Director of Études to Author of Jésus Christ
(i) Pastoral Ministry
(ii) Defending the Existence of Jesus
(iii) Jésus Christ (1927)
E. Death and Legacy 119
F. Conclusion 120
iv
II. MODERNIST CHALLENGE TO PERSONAL RELIGION……...…………….122
A. Tragic Oscillation of Modernism: Between Rationalism & Sentimental Religion 123
The Problem
Sentimental Religion and the Case of Auguste Sabatier
Rationalism and the Case of Ernest Renan
B. Modernism’s Philosophical Ruin of Personal Religion 148
Agnosticism
Immanentism
Evolutionism
C. Modernism’s Doctrinal and Pastoral Devastation of Personal Religion 179
Devastation of Deposit of Faith: Fragmented Christ, Church, and Believer
Flight to Mysticism: Modernism’s Failed Spiritual Escape
D. Conclusion 207
III. CATHOLICISM: THE PERSONAL RELIGION THAT JESUS FOUNDED………..........209
A. The Form of Grandmaison’s Case for Catholicism 210
B. The Holy Spirit as Principle of Personal Religion 218
C. How Catholicism Resolved the Contraries of Personal Religion 223
Divine Transcendence vis-à-vis Divine Immanence
Grace vis-à-vis Nature, the Supernatural vis-à-vis the Natural
The Social vis-à-vis the Individual
The Deposit of Faith vis-à-vis the Development of Doctrine
Ecclesiastical Authority vis-à-vis the Holy Spirit
Asceticism vis-à-vis Mysticism
D. Social Catholicism as a Development of the Social Dimension of Catholicism 288
Social Catholicism as Anticipation of the Religious Destiny of Humanity
Church as Servant of the Temporal Order
E. Conclusion 300
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IV. JESUS CHRIST AS SOURCE AND EXEMPLAR OF PERSONAL RELIGION……....…302
A. Personal Religion as Grandmaison’s Wager: Aims & Strategies of Christology 303
Jésus Christ (1927) vis-à-vis the DAFC article (1914)
Aims and Objectives
Strategy: Grandmaison’s Wager
Integrating Principle of Grandmaison’s Christology: Personal Religion
Use of the Historical-critical method
B. Books One and Two of Jésus Christ: The Sources of the Life of Christ 335
and the Gospel Milieu
C. The Message, Person, and Works of Jesus 348
Book three: Jesus––the Message
Book four: The Person of Jesus: His Personal Religion
The testimony of Christ to himself
The Person of Jesus
(i) The Religion of Jesus
(ii) His Conversation with his Brothers
(iii) His Intimate Life
The Problem of Christ: The solutions and the Solution
Book five: The works of Jesus
D. Jésus continué dans l’Église (1): The Establishment of the Religion of Jesus……………...412
Le Mystère chrétien et les mystères païens
The Religion of Jesus Christ from its Origins till the Apostolic Age
E. Jésus continué dans L’Église (2): The Witnesses of Jesus in History 440
F. Conclusion 451
CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………………...…..455
A. Evaluation 456
B. Theological and Pastoral Consequences 461
BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………...………..465
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my Jesuit superiors, especially Fathers Robert Levens, S.J., Thomas
Regan, S.J., Myles Sheehan, S.J., and James Shea, S.J., for missioning me to doctoral studies. I owe a
special debt to Fr. J. Michael McDermott, S.J. for suggesting that I take a look at the writings of Fr.
Léonce de Grandmaison, and to formation director Fr. Richard Deshaies, S.J., for shepherding and
supporting me through much of the process. My dissertation director Fr. Joseph Komonchak and
readers Fr. John Galvin and Msgr. Paul McPartlan deserve special praise for their insight,
discernment, and patience. I am grateful to the Jesuit communities at Gonazaga High School,
Fairfield University, and the University of Scranton, without whose prayers, encouragement, and
assistance this work would not have been possible; and to the brother Jesuits who so selflessly
undertook to proofread this work. I thank the administration at the University of Scranton and my
colleagues at the Department of Theology and Religious Studies there, especially Chair Dr. Charles
Pinches, for their support. Last but not least, I would like to thank the many benefactors of the
Society of Jesus, including my family, for their generous support of my education and of this
dissertation. May it have been worth the work and the wait.
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INTRODUCTION
In the synoptic gospels, Jesus Christ posed this question to his disciples: “But who do you
say that I am?” (Mt. 16:15; Mk. 8:28; Lk. 9:20).1 He sought to know not only what the disciples
heard by way of report about him, but also about what they professed him and his mission to be.
The mystery of Jesus was not merely a question of academic inquiry. The truth about Jesus was
relevant to the truth about God, the Church, and the individual believer. Indeed, the entire analogy–
–the unity––of faith depended upon the answer to the question. The disciples’ personal profession
of faith in Christ also animated their following of him. Heartfelt worship and a good life were meant
to follow from the declaration that “Jesus is Lord!” (1 Cor. 12: 3). The Church’s worship,
discipleship, and express beliefs in turn were meant to give witness to the truth about Jesus.
A. Modernist Crisis
The interrelationship between Christ, the Church, and the Christian were concerns of many
decrees of the Second Vatican Council. Yet the urgency of these concerns was keenly felt decades
earlier during the modernist controversy. As a broad intellectual and social movement within the
Catholic Church in Western Europe, modernism extended roughly from the last quarter of the
nineteenth century to the first quarter of the twentieth century. The crisis that modernism
precipitated within the Catholic Church, especially in France, its geographical epicenter, was most
intense from around the time of the publication of Loisy’s L’Évangile et L’Église in 19022 till shortly
after the interventions of the Vatican in 1907.
During the modernist era, Catholic biblical scholars, historians, and theologians delved into
biblical exegesis, the development of doctrine, and the comparative study of religions in ways that
aroused controversy. The process of researching the origins of Christianity raised a number of
1 Unless otherwise indicated, all biblical quotations will be from the Revised Standard Version.
2 Alfred Loisy, L’Évangile et L’Église (Paris, [published by author], 1902).
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